


Submergence

by BrusselsSprout



Series: Variations (S6 speculation stories) [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Psychological Drama, S6 speculation, evil fitz, for now, this is not a fluffy story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 08:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16761799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrusselsSprout/pseuds/BrusselsSprout
Summary: Jemma finds Fitz in space. But the question is, who he wakes up as and what does he want?





	1. Awakening

_“_ _Fitz!” The muffled voice was calling him. He would have recognized this voice anywhere; more familiar than even his own. It was trying to lead him out of the darkness. He opened his mouth to reply but he couldn’t breathe. The black mass of water weighed him down, the undercurrent grabbing his feet in an icy grip. He looked around in panic; dizzy from lack of oxygen. Gold sparks swam before his eyes - it was the light, the surface. He kicked hard trying to propel himself towards it - he had to get back to her. He extended his arms, stretched his fingers - the light was within reach almost. Then an invisible force pulled him back into the depth. He tried to shake off its grip, but his lungs were being pierced by a thousand needles. The sharp pain was the last thing he felt before darkness engulfed him._

“Fitz, wake up!” _Doctor_ Fitz, he thought with irritation, but his lips were too frozen to move. The light penetrated his fluttering eyelids, blinding him. He felt soft hair brushing against his face like a caress, the familiar fruity scent transporting him back in time to memories that tasted dark and bittersweet like the finest chocolate. He tried to focus and say her name but his voice chords did not seem to function. _Where was he?_

Finally, his eyes started to clear up and he looked around. He was in a bare, metal room, like an airplane, lying in something, … what was it? A coffin? And how did he get there? The memories flapped around his head like bats disturbed in a dark cave - scary and menacing. He died - didn’t he? “Fitz…” the voice called again. He turned towards it, but the smile froze on his lips when instead of the woman he loved, he was staring into the eyes of his father's killer. Jemma Simmons, that was her name. He felt the anger bubbling inside him, as he struggled to sit up. They must have captured him. Except she was smiling at him, lovingly. That was strange.

His mind raced in panic as he tried to keep his features neutral. _Remember your training,_ he said to himself. _Do not give away anything_. He had to figure out what was going on. A memory came flashing then - her face soft and pleading, telling him she loved him, that they were together in another world. He must have made it back to this other world, somehow.

She stepped closer with tears on her face and lifted her arms to embrace him, but he put his hands out instinctively, pushing her away. When he saw the hurt and shock in her eyes, he realized that he made a mistake. He was too weak and vulnerable, he needed time to understand what was going on and a plan to figure something out.

“I’m sorry, I need a minute.” He smiled apologetically, his voice was barely louder than a whisper. Still it felt like those words cut his throat like razor blades.

Jemma’s face softened and she smiled at him “Of course. Here, try to warm up, Fitz.” She wrapped a blanket around him. The warmth felt good; he hadn’t realized how much he was shivering. “You are still in shock. Let’s get you in a shower,” she said and hurried off.

He stayed alone in the chamber and studied the details of it. The box he was lying in seemed to be a cryo-freeze chamber. Why would he be in a cryo-freeze chamber? Did they lock him into one because he was sick? Dangerous? He tried to get on his feet and they felt like wet spaghetti noodles. Holding onto the sparse furniture he stumbled to the window that revealed darkness and rocks flying by. Space. He was in space. The panic was back, there was no way out.

-0-

_Cold, it was so cold. As if his blood turned into ice slush. Everything was white like an endless field of snow. White walls, white linen, a clock on the wall that seemed strangely stuck. He was frozen in time suspended between consciousness and oblivion. He smelled something, it was sharp and clinical, like disinfectant. “You need to wake up, Fitz. Please, wake up. You can fight it, I know it.” The voice was familiar, something like a precious memory. He felt a warm touch on his ice cold hands and suddenly it wasn’t so cold anymore. The voice was right, he could fight this._

-0-

A hand touched his shoulder and he jumped slightly. “Sorry, I didn’t want to startle you. You shouldn’t be up, Fitz, you are too weak. Come let me help you, the shower is ready.” Jemma Simmons snaked her arm around his waist and led him towards the shower. Her nearness was disorienteering. She smelled like Ophelia, but the way her body felt against his was different, yet intensely familiar. It must be muscle memory, he decided. She led him into the shower and took his blanket, then stared at him awkwardly. “Do you need help with…?”

The Doctor shook his head. “No, I think I’ve got this.” She nodded and left him in the shower alone. He sighed in relief. He really need some quiet to think, to collect his thoughts. They were in space, with Jemma Simmons, who thought he was her Fitz from the “other world”. The world that Ophelia and Radcliffe talked about. The place where HYDRA lost and SHIELD, who enslaved and hurt Ophelia, won.

He thought he remembered this Fitz being a SHIELD agent and he saw Ophelia go up in flames, but he couldn’t be sure if it was a nightmare or a window between existence and the void where he got a glimpse into this other dimension..

Still, his only choice was to blend in, until he figured out more. Maybe it was his chance to take revenge on the ones who destroyed the world he had worked so hard, sacrificed so much for. Maybe he could figure out a way to get Ophelia back. And maybe, if he was lucky, he could find his father here.

He looked in the mirror and his face seemed both familiar and unfamiliar with the messy curls and the unkempt beard. The Fitz of this world seemed to have a different idea about neatness. He sighed; for now it was probably safer to keep this look. He grabbed the razor blade, but resisted the urge to re-create the sharp edges he liked. The clean clothes that she prepared for him - a pair of faded jeans, a gray T-shirt and the big frumpy cardigan - all looked beyond ridiculous. The Fitz of this world also did not seem to have much fashion sense. When he was dressed and looked into the mirror, it felt like he was in someone else’s body. Then it occurred to him that literally that was the case. He somehow took over the Fitz of this world. It made sense, he was strong, if only one of them could survive it made sense for it to be him.

He emerged from the bathroom to find Jemma waiting for him with some tea. Her smile did not reach her eyes as she handed over a steaming mug, their fingers brushing ever so slightly. He took a sip; well at least Fitz liked his tea the proper way; sweet and without milk.

“So are you going to tell me everything?” he asked, figuring that the question was vague enough to fit most scenarios. He listened intently trying to store all the information in his brain. There was a future where the world was destroyed. Well, this bit was familiar. They were taken there through a monolith, but Fitz was left behind. He travelled in the cryo-freeze chamber to save them, they all came back. They saved the world, but he died. Jemma teared up at this part, as she told him that Fitz was a hero, going into a collapsing building to save an inhuman child and her mother, and instead of leaving he went back to save Mack. That Fitz sounded like an utter fool to him. Jemma was sobbing now, looking at him expectantly, and he realized he was supposed to do something. He put his hand hesitantly on her shoulder and she collapsed against his chest, her hot tears soaking his T-Shirt. He froze, and sat motionless until her crying subsided.

She lifted her gaze. “Sorry.” When he did not reply, she finished quickly the story. They came to rescue him, because she realized there must be a version of him still travelling to the future.

His head was spinning; it sounded like the plot of a confusing science fiction story. “But that’s impossible. I can’t be in two places at once. What about the laws of physics? What about the second law of thermodynamics?” he asked.

Her smile lit up at that, and was both sad and happy, teary and radiant. That smile tugged at his heart in a strange way. “It gets even weirder, Fitz. But maybe we’ll take it slowly. It’s a lot to process. It’s time to meet the others.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that…” he said quietly.

“Don’t be silly, after everything, they all just want to say hello, to know that you are OK.” she replied. “We’ll make it quick if you are tired.”

“Yeah, OK.” He tried to focus - as long as he did not slip up, he was going to be ok. Fitz had a valid reason to be a bit “out of it”. 

The latch opened and Fitz found himself staring at a group of unfamiliar faces all smiling at him enthusiastically. A giant stepped closer and embraced him. “Ah, so good to see you, Turbo. _”Turbo?” What a ridiculous nickname it was._

“It’s good to be back,” he muttered. The giant slapped his shoulders and he stepped inside the ship. It was both familiar and different. The Zephyr in space - how was it possible? The artificial gravity i itself would be an insurmountable problem. _Was it possible that the frumpy, weak Fitz of this world cracked a problem quite so impressive?_

“We made some modifications, come, I’ll show you…” The big man grinned at him. “You’ll want to…”

“Not now, Mack.” Jemma jumped in quickly. The Doctor made a quick mental note - Mack - the giant’s name was Mack. “I think he’s still a bit disoriented.” Jemma’s intervention was a blessing. Meeting all these people was overwhelming - he needed more information to be able to blend in until the end of the journey.

Behind Mack stood a girl with metallic arms. He was fairly certain she was an inhuman he experimented on - he never forgot them; their fear, their pain were all etched into the Doctor’s mind.

Before he turned to follow Jemma Simmons, he froze. The woman standing a bit apart from the rest of them, looking at him with hard eyes was a face he would recognize anywhere. Skye Johnson. The inhuman who broke Ophelia’s back. Hatred boiled inside him and his fists clenched. Her eyes narrowed with fear and a chill travelled down the Doctor’s spine. _She knows,_ he thought.


	2. Down the Rabbit Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Doctor is looking for clues, Fitz is looking for a way out.

It wasn’t at all how she imagined it would be. During her long search, she felt him so close, his love radiating through spacetime, and now that she finally found him, he seemed more distant than ever. He curled up facing the wall, inching as far away from her as the dimensions of the bed allowed. “I need some time,” he had muttered as he pulled away from her touch.. 

_ You just need to be patient _ , Jemma reminded herself. After all, nobody promised this would be easy. There were a thousand reasons why he would feel out of sorts. She still remembered how she felt after her own space rescue and how understanding Fitz had been with her. She reached out carefully not to wake him and stroke his curls with her fingers. “We’ll get through this, Fitz, I promise,” she whispered into the darkness. “Together.”

-0-

_ The thick fog around him seemed to lighten a bit, letting in echoes of the outside world that was blocked from view. He couldn’t think, it was all too much. He was tempted to stop fighting; it would be easy to simply let go and surrender to the oblivion of the fog. Every breath, every faltering step hurt. He collapsed to the ground exhausted; there was no way out of here, wherever here was. He closed his eyes and a single teardrop rolled down from his eyes. His limbs felt light, as if he was about dissolve, become part of the fog. Nothing but condensed water droplets, cooled to the dew-point. Back to where all life began.  _

_Something or someone touched his forehead. It was achingly familiar and made him feel solid again - flesh and bone._ _“We’ll get through this, Fitz, I promise. Together.” It was the voice that he carried in his heart. She called him, like he had somewhere to be, he reminded him of a promise. He had to fight for her. He struggled to his knees and crawled forward through the fog. He had to do it for her._

_ -0- _

He needed to make a plan and get more information if this was going to work. The Doctor got out of bed, careful not to wake the woman sleeping next to him. Her nearness was confusing - hate battled with something else inside him twisting his stomach into uncomfortable knots.  _ Familiar. _ That’s what it felt like, and he had to block out the sensation to keep a clear head. 

He walked towards the control room in this Zephyr that looked so similar to the one he built, yet in some ways also different. He grabbed a laptop and connected it to the mainframe, bypassing the pass codes. He pulled up the personnel files, trying to commit to memory as much as he could about his fellow passengers;  _ Jemma Simmons, Daisy Johnson, Alphonso Mackenzie, Elena Rodriguez _ ... At least he knew the names and he quickly read through the information. Then he pulled up his own file. 

He was relieved to find that his birthdate and basic data matched with his own life. He flipped through his designs; most of them were things he at least recognized. His education - physics and engineering - also fit. The dissertation topics were different but he supposed it was close enough. He scrolled further down to look into the next of kin box, hoping to find an address to his father. Instead, what he saw shook him to the core - it was his mother’s photo. She looked older, but even though he hadn’t seen her in twenty years, he recognized her without a doubt.  _ His mother was alive in this world _ . He closed his eyes, remembering sweet pancakes, warm hugs and a proud smile. He felt a deep longing, a feeling he had learnt to push away.  _ No, mother was going to make him weaker _ \- just look at this guy, throwing his talent away, tinkering away with toys instead of stepping up to the plate.

“What are you doing?” Skye, no, Daisy Johnson leaned against the door of the server room looking at him with cold eyes.

“I can’t sleep - it’s too much to process,” he replied truthfully. For now that was the best strategy. Keep to short answers, hide the lies inside truth. 

“I meant why were you connecting to the mainframe?” she asked. Oh, yeah… she was not only an inhuman, but also a genius hacker, according to her files.

“My brain is in a mush and couldn’t remember my access code.” he shrugged. 

She looked at him with a strange glimmer in her eyes. “I remember you saying that you’d never forget the Fibonacci sequence and I quote here < _ even if I was waken from the dead _ >?

“Right,” he nodded and put the numbers into the laptop. “Thanks, Skye.” Shit, he realized his slip up and instantly corrected it. “I mean Daisy.” 

“Are you ok?” Daisy’s face softened a little bit as she looked at him with obvious worry.

“It’s just - you know - all of this is overwhelming.”

“Did Jemma tell you everything?” Daisy asked, her voice hoarse.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he shrugged. Apparently it was the wrong answer; Daisy’s face clouded over with anger. The Doctor swallowed trying to mask the cold fear he felt. She had the power to crush his bones or send him flying into space. She was a deadly weapon walking free and was apparently pissed off at the other Fitz. Not a promising combination. SHIELD was insane to trust the inhumans, they really fell down on their duty to protect civilians. 

“I’m watching you this time, Fitz,” she warned him and he let out a sigh of relief once she walked out of sight. He turned back his attention to the personnel files, committing them to memory. 

-0-

“So when are you going to tell me everything? How am I supposed to process this if you are keeping things from me?” He confronted Jemma angrily when he got back to the little cabin they shared.

Her eyes grew wide. “Fitz…Who…?” 

“Daisy hates me. I need to know why...” he spit out angrily stepping closer to her fists clenched at his side. When she drew her eyebrows together, he stepped back and added more quietly. “Please Jemma, I need to know.”

She struggled visibly, rubbing her fingers together nervously. “OK…It started with an explosion of two monoliths that created a fear rift…” He listened intently as Jemma told him the story of the fear apparitions and the gravitonium problem. “You wanted to fix it so badly, that it almost broke you, Fitz.” Jemma said heavily as she talked about the surgery. “But it wasn’t really you, Fitz. It was a psychic split, I think.” He narrowed his eyes as the implications became clear. So in this other life, he managed to appear somehow as well. Two consciousness in the same body, and there had to be a pathway. If she was right - and it was a plausible theory - the other Fitz could be in there somewhere. It was essential that he never found his way out. 

When she finished her story, she looked at him expectantly, waiting for his reaction. The Doctor nodded slowly. “I - he just did what had to be done. You are a scientist, you surely know that it was the rational choice.”

She was taken aback visibly. “Fitz… even if that was the case, it was wrong to attack Daisy. You know that - and it was eating you away. She’s our friend, she trusted you.”

“And now she doesn’t.” he sighed and Jemma looked away.

“Do you still hear him?” she asked quietly after a moment of silence.

The Doctor shook his head. “I don’t. It’s just me.” It was the truth, at least for now.

Jemma grabbed his hands in a comforting gesture. “Look, Daisy will come around. You are not him.” 

“No, clearly not.” At least that was something he agreed with.

“Fitz, there is something else.” Jemma said biting her lips.

“There is?” 

“I don’t want any secrets between us. We... we got married. I mean it wasn’t even official,” she had a small, sad smile as she talked about the wedding. The Doctor figured that he was supposed to feel happiness about, so he smiled, trying to hide his nausea.

“I...maybe it’s best if you watch it.” She handed him her phone with a video on it, and left the room which he felt glad about.

He pushed the button and the video started playing. People were gathering on a green meadow, Daisy was fixing Jemma’s dress and they giggled. He watched himself walk into the lawn with Coulson, who apparently wasn’t teacher-turned-rebel in this world, but actually former director of SHIELD, and a young man he did not recognize from the files. This other Fitz seemed deliriously happy as he stared lovingly at Jemma. He listened to their vows - hers well-prepared, his a complete mess. _ I would never makes such a fool out of myself, _ he thought. He wondered if they could have had something like this with Ophelia if their world wasn’t destroyed. He tried to picture her dressed in an exquisite wedding dress, smiling at him with so much emotion, telling him that her love for him was growing deeper every day, but the image felt fake, like a badly done photo edit. As he tried to remember Ophelia’s smile, all he could see was Jemma. It was useless, and he tossed the phone in frustration.

-0-

_ She looked otherworldly in the white lace dress and with flowers braided in her hair. She smiled at him warmly through the fog, and Fitz knew that he had to go to her. She was the key, and he would cross galaxies for her. “Love is stronger than any curse,” he muttered to himself and the fog let up a little. “Love is stronger than any curse.” he repeated louder this time. The fog lifted completely and finally he saw a narrow path leading in her direction. He lunged for it. Gritting his teeth and ignoring the stabbing pain in his limbs, he ran as fast as he could. He almost reached her, when a sliding door shut closed in front of him. He banged the door with his fists. “Jemmaaaaaaa!” the name came out as naturally as his breath. He yelled desperately, but she couldn’t hear him. She turned around and walked away. “No, no, no…” His fist felt raw. _

_ “It’s no use, you can’t get out.” The voice was cold, but familiar.  _

_ “Who...who are you?” stuttered Fitz. _

_ “Come on. You must remember me.” The figure that stared at him from the other side of the door looked just like him, except his eyes were icy and his face was contorted with an ugly sneer.  _

_ A chill ran down Fitz’s spine. Vague memories of unspeakable crimes invaded his mind; it felt both like a distant dream and vivid reality. “You… you can’t be here.” _

_ The Doctor shrugged and brushed an imaginary speck off of his shirt. “And I’m not planning to stay. On the other hand, you have to. There is no way out for you.” _

_ “But Jemma....” Fitz muttered. _

_ “She’s my problem now and believe me I intend to deal with her.” He sounded so sinister. “But she’s useful for now.” _

_ “Let me out. Why are you doing this? She means nothing to you and means everything to me.” Fitz pleaded desperately. Surely, this monster couldn’t have invaded his world.  _

_ “Well, that’s very touching. But look there’s two of us and only one body, and so…considering the mess you and your friends made of the world...really, it’s the rational choice…” The Doctor explained impassively. _

_ “I’m not going to give up,” Fitz glared at the impostor defiantly.  _

_ “You can certainly try, but I’m telling you, there is no way out of here.” The Doctor pulled on his cuffs. _

_ “You will not get away with this - she’s smarter than you are. She’ll figure it out.” Fitz shouted. _

_ “Perhaps she is smarter than  _ you _ , but not me. Bye Fitz.” The Doctor walked away and snapped his fingers.  _

_ The ground opened up under Fitz and he fell through gray tunnels zigzagging at neck-breaking speed. He finally landed on something solid...ish. It felt fuzzy and rubbery under his fingers. The place was completely dark. Fitz curled up on the ground where he fell, his heart throbbing in his ears. The sound was deafening. Panic washed over him, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe or think. I lost my mind, he thought. Except… ironically, it was his body he lost. Bloody hell. But this was no time to lose. He had to figure out a way to contact her - he had to warn Jemma. _

  
  


-0- 

Jemma found him staring into space through one of the windows. The dark expanse that once used to fascinate her now filled her with dread. Still, she saw his eyes fixed into the distance as the sun rose behind Earth, transforming its dark surface into sparkling sapphire. It was beautiful.

“Are you OK?” she asked softly. 

“I am now.” he let out a deep breath. “It feels like I got a second chance to make things right.”

Jemma’s heart fell. She hoped he would talk about the wedding, what meant for the two of them. Instead, there was a wall, thick and impenetrable. She had no idea what was going on inside his head. “We have so much to talk about…” Her voice echoed weakly against the metal walls.

He looked at her with detachment. “And we will, when I’m ready. But now, let’s just watch the sunrise.”

Jemma grimaced. In her memory, she could hear his hitched breath, so full of desire, she could see the warmth and love mixed with uncertainty in his eyes as he spoke those words, but the man standing next to her felt like a total stranger; a mockery of the images etched in her heart.. 


	3. Loopholes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong, Fitz finds an unlikely ally and the Doctor sets on solving puzzles.

_ “The damage to the frontal lobe was too much… He may never be himself anymore… We detected massive trauma in Broca’s area...“ The voices sounded so gloomy. Suspended in the whiteness, Fitz could not make out their faces - all his senses were focused on her face. She was crying. That was bad. He never wanted to make Jemma cry… He tried to shout. “Jemma, look at me. I’m here…It’s OK... Can you hear me? I’m here…” But she didn’t seem to hear, all her attention turned to whomever the gloomy voices belonged to. “Jemma… Don’t give up on me…” he pleaded. Her head turned around suddenly and Fitz was sure that this time she heard his words. She walked over to his bed and ran her fingers softly over his hair. Her beautiful face was close enough to feel her breath. Honey-brown eyes looked at him with such deep sadness that it made his heart ache. “You have to wake up Fitz. Please, you have to.” _

-0-

Jemma jolted awake. She used to have regular nightmares about those nine days that Fitz spent in coma. It was the first time her world fell apart so completely. But those particular nightmares faded as new ones emerged, once the intense pain of that experience got buried under all the other fresher trauma. There were certainly enough terrors to choose from. This time though her dream was so vivid - she could almost hear the doctor’s subdued voice talking about the damage to the frontal lobe and smell the disinfectant in the room. It brought back a weird memory. On that day in the hospital she had had the strangest feeling; she could have sworn she heard Fitz’s voice calling her but when she went over to his bed, he was lying motionlessly hooked up to whirring machines, still in a coma. She had dismissed the voice as a hallucination brought on by the sleepless hours she spent by his bedside, and never really thought about it afterwards.

But now she wondered why she started dreaming about this again. She could not shake the feeling that it was somehow important. Fitz always used to tell her to sleep on the problems she could not solve, that sometimes the dreams would answer the questions she didn’t quite figure out how to ask. 

She got out of bed and headed towards the kitchenette to make tea. As she stepped through the door, she found Daisy at the counter, nursing a cold bottle of water. 

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Jemma looked at Daisy’s bloodshot eyes.

“No, I’ve been having trouble lately. The joint pains are getting worse.” The serum they created may have helped Daisy to save the world against Graviton, but it didn’t come without a price. These things never did. The power-up had put too much strain on her bones and joints and even though Jemma had tried everything she could to help her, so far, all she managed to do was to slow down the deterioration. Daisy put on a brave face, as always, but the diminishing supply of painkillers was a clear sign that things were getting worse. “What’s your excuse?” she asked flippantly.

“Nightmares.” Jemma admitted, but when she saw the concern in Daisy’s eyes, she immediately curled her lips into a smile and waved. “It’s probably nothing. All the stress of looking for Fitz…And now...you know... ”

Daisy furrowed her brow. “No, I don’t know. Is everything OK with him?”

“Yeah, of course,” smiled Jemma, but the smile faded under Daisy’s scrutiny. She shook her head slightly then sighed. “I don’t know - it just feels like he’s so far away. It makes no sense.”

“Could it be the adjustment?” Daisy asked. “I mean his memory problems…”

“What memory problems?” Jemma interrupted. Fitz never said a word about memory problems. Last time he woke up from cryo-freeze, he had no memory problems at all. 

“He didn’t mention them to you?” Daisy seemed surprised. 

“No.” Jemma felt annoyed. Fitz had no right to keep medically relevant information from her. Not only because they were together, but well, she was the only doctor on board. If anything was wrong, she had to know.

Daisy took a long sip from her bottle. “He’s probably just embarrassed by it…I mean you remember how he was after the coma...”

“Yes. Surely you’re right…and everything is fine,” Jemma nodded, stirring her tea over and over with a sinking feeling that nothing was fine. 

-0-

_ “Wake up, Fitz. Please, you have to.” Right. He had somewhere to be. With Jemma, to be precise. He was somewhere, somewhere deep and dark, wet and spongy. It was completely crazy, but it felt like he was buried inside his own brain. The thought made him want to throw up, until he remembered that he had no body - well, not really. Bloody hell. He was a consciousness being buried alive by a rogue programming. He wasn’t even sure if “alive” made any sense in this situation. Was this what having a “soul” meant? Anyways, philosophy was not going to help him here. He had to think of it differently, like an engineer. To figure a way out of here, he needed to break the problem down to solvable pieces.  _

_ The brain was like a giant processing chip, so he just had to get his bearings and find the pathways. Feeling the spongy walls with his hands he tried to judge its shape and dimension. It was curved, shaped like an almond. Right. He was inside the amygdala. That was no good. Too far from the frontal lobe where he could take over speech… But the amygdala was part of the limbic system that ruled emotions. Maybe that was a way to reach out to Jemma. After all, their love was stronger than any curse, any known law of science. Their psychic link that had saved them so many time in the past had to work.  _

_ These neural pathways on brain diagrams always looked like a straight tunnel. Oh boy, did those drawings get it wrong! The place was more like an impenetrable labyrinth of gooey gray flaps and slime. Fitz tried to pick a direction but could not get his bearings and soon he stumbled along blindly in the maze. The slime seemed to stick to him and weigh him down. OK, this was clearly a terrible idea. He would never make it out here, he thought dejectedly.  _

_ “Follow me!” The voice rang high and crystal clear. It was not Jemma’s voice, but still one that he recognized. The boy standing in front of him had sandy-brown curls and freckles, and the same unmistakably blue eyes that he saw every time he looked into the mirror. The boy was him. “I can lead you out of here,” he held out his hand.  _

-0- 

The wires that crisscrossed the underside of the Zephyr’s control panel were a whole new amazing universe to discover. The design was the dream of an incredibly creative mind. His own mind, strangely. It was peaceful being inside of the puzzle. His worries about the other Fitz, about SHIELD or his thoughts of revenge on the inhuman melted away. Only the problem existed - it was as close as he ever came to being in the moment. Being aligned with himself, with the child who loved tinkering and figuring out how things worked. 

“Can I get some more light here?” he said loudly. One of the little drones whirred and angled the light as instructed. The other one scanned the wires for possible malfunctions.

“So what do you think?” Mack stuck his head under the panel. 

“Well, the glitch seems to be in this circuit over here…” The Doctor pointed to a bunch of wires. 

Mack patted his shoulders with a grin. “You’re right, Turbo, you’re right.”

“I often am…” the Doctor muttered drily. 

“This is just like the good old days…,” Mack handed him the crimpers.

“Yeah. Good old days.” he took the tools and hooked up the wires that came loose. As he crawled out from under the panel he found Jemma standing over him. 

-0-

“There you are,” she said with a nervous smile.

“Fitz and I were fixing the navigation system; it’s been acting up lately.” Mack explained. “My man here still has the magic touch.” 

Fitz smiled. It wasn’t a cold, detached smile. It was one of those real Fitz smile that lit up his eyes with warmth and love.  _ “Jemma… be careful... he is not me.”  _

Jemma looked at Fitz startled. “What did you say?”

He stared back at her with expressionless eyes. “What? Nothing. The wiring is fixed. Were you looking for me?”

“Yeah, I need you in the lab,” Jemma looked away.

“Yeah, OK. I just need to put away the drone,” he said. He pushed the button on the remote, Happy and Bashful came buzzing through the air. Fitz opened the DWARVES-case and put the Happy inside. 

“Wait! That’s Bashful’s place,” said Jemma. 

Fitz looked at her blankly. “Pardon?” 

“You mixed up the dwarves.” Jemma pointed out, her voice faltering. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Fitz shrugged and closed the lid. “Didn’t you say you needed me in the lab?”

Jemma looked at him puzzled. Fitz not once in his life mixed up the dwarves. They weren’t drones to him, they were like personal friends. “ _ He is not me.”  _ A cold shiver ran down her spine.

-0- 

The stress fractures on the bones looked like delicate spiderwebs, spreading everywhere. That was bad news for the inhuman, but perhaps the opportunity he needed to deal with the threat she presented to him. 

“That doesn’t look good,” he turned to Jemma. 

“Understatement of the century, Fitz.” She enlarged the images on the computer. “These are from two weeks ago and this is from yesterday. You see?”

“It’s deteriorating fast,” nodded the Doctor. The human body was not designed for inhuman powers, they were unnatural. It was just a fact. That’s why he designed Project Looking Glass with such care. It was meant to give Ophelia a body so perfect that could take on all the powers they had collected without any problems. To be the hero she was meant to be. “So even with Daisy not using her powers, the stress on her body continues to worsen.”

“Exactly. I’ve tried to slow it down, but I’m out of ideas,” Jemma confessed looking at him expectantly.  _ Right. This was the part where Fitz was supposed to jump in with brilliant ideas. _

“Have you tried putting back the inhibitor?” the Doctor asked. The device could be a real shot to give the inhuman’s body a chance to heal, and well, as an added bonus, he would be safe from her powers.

“Fitz, we don’t know anything about the Kree technology.” Jemma looked at him horrified. “Daisy is not a lab rat.”

“Come on Simmons. Isn’t unknown technology what drew you to SHIELD in the first place? Expanding knowledge? Using it for humanity’s betterment?” He remembered these lines from her SHIELD intake file.

“Yes, but there are immense risks…” she objected. “Even if it works, the surgery itself could have complications.”

“There are always risks. But you’ve thought about it - didn’t you?” He looked at her and she bit her lips. _ Bingo.  _ For all her goody-goody talk, Simmons was a hard scientist like him, ready to push boundaries. Working in the lab with her had its appeal. He could almost see why the other Fitz was so crazy about her. “Of course you did. You’re a scientist after all. A good one. That’s what we do, we follow the puzzle.”

“There is nothing it can tell you. I’ve checked the device, but there is no obvious clue as to how it works,” Jemma pulled out the inhibitor from a box.

It sounded like a challenge. Maybe Jemma Simmons was not as brilliant as everyone seemed to think. The Doctor held out his hand. “Maybe you just didn’t know what to look for.”

-0-

Jemma watched Fitz taking apart the Kree device with agile fingers. Laser-focused on his work, it really felt familiar, working side by side, like the good old days. Still, something seemed off - the callousness, the cold science - it just wasn’t the Fitz she knew. It sounded exactly like  _ him _ .  _ The Doctor. _ But  _ he _ was Fitz or was he? “ _ He is not me.”  _ She could have sworn she heard him say it. Maybe her mind was really just crumbling under the stress. 

She turned her attention back to the images on the computer, trying to figure out the pattern of the progression of the fracture lines. Analysing the data could help predict the rate of deterioration. As they worked silently for a while, each focusing on their task, Jemma couldn’t stop herself stealing sideways glances at Fitz who seemed completely absorbed with the device.

“We have a winner here,” Fitz exclaimed and she walked over to his work-station. He had the device hooked up to a machine that showed a rhythmic pulsating pattern. Jemma leaned closer. 

“You’re measuring the resonant frequencies, but I’ve already tested for that…”

“Not in the Theta-wave range...” he pointed at the screen.

Jemma frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense - Daisy’s abilities work when she’s awake, not in deep sleep…”

“My research has shown that inhuman abilities work already at lower resonant frequencies… so I bet this gizmo functions like a continuous EMP disrupting the neuropaths by blocking the lower waves.” He sounded obviously pleased with himself. But Jemma was only half-listening to the explanation.

“ _ Your _ research?” she asked sharply. 

Fitz looked taken aback. He bit his lips. “The Doctor’s research, obviously,” he corrected on a low, strained voice.

“You said you don’t hear him.” 

“I don’t. But I have the memories, Jemma, so why not use it?” he asked.  _ Why not indeed? _ Jemma thought.  _ Still, the Framework was tainted by the Darkhold. Could they trust anything coming out of there? Could she trust Fitz? Or whoever this person was? _

“Even then, we don’t know how we could attach it. Or if it’s safe,” she shrugged.

Fitz pulled up the images from before, taken when the device was still inside Daisy’s head. “It looks like it was connected to the vestibulocochlear nerve.”

“Are you suggesting we do brain surgery here on Zephyr?”

“You asked me to help. What did you expect exactly?” he snapped at her impatiently.

“Honestly? Something more like a new superhero suit...” she had hoped that just like the time when he made Daisy’s gauntlet, he would come up with something ingenious. 

“Right, because playing dress-up is how you solve problems,” he scoffed. Jemma frowned - it was all wrong - Fitz always loved superhero suits. “Come on, you know I’m right, Jemma,” he said evenly. “Let’s work with what we have.” He picked up the Kree device with tweezers and dropped it into a blue specimen bag. 

Jemma stared at him dumbfounded. “Why did you put it in the blue bag?”

“It was the closest.” he shrugged. “What is your problem?”

_ B is for blue for biological.  _ It was on the tip of her tongue, but then the words flashed in her mind again. _ “Be careful, Jemma… He is not me.” He couldn’t know what she suspected. She needed more proof. _

_ Think fast, _ she told herself. “OK, I hate to admit, but it may be our best shot. However, I’ll need to set up the brain scanner first, to make sure it works properly. I’ll hook you up.”

Fitz frowned. “Why on me? I’m not an inhuman.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to Daisy until I’m certain there’s a good chance this works. I don’t want to rattle her unnecessarily. She’s been through a lot. Don’t be a wuss, we are just testing the monitor.”

“I’m not a wuss,” he grimaced then pondered for a minute. “Fine.”

Jemma hooked up the sensors on his head, sending the map of his brain to the computer screen. The activity going on was astounding - it was lit up everywhere; frontal lobe, limbic system, amygdala were all buzzing. Jemma didn’t know how else to put it - it seemed like there was a war inside his brain.

“Are you having memory problems?” she asked.

“No. Why? Do you see something wrong?” he seemed nervous. His dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex lit up with activity.  _ He was trying to deceive her in some way. _

“Daisy mentioned something,” she said casually.

“Oh that? It was only temporary. That’s why I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want you to worry,” he replied. Jemma had her eyes fixed on the screen. Science showed it to her black and white.  _ He was lying through his teeth.  _

“All set. Thanks, Fitz.” Jemma smiled, even though she felt numb inside. A _ fter everything she lost, after everything they went through to find him again - this is what the universe gave her? Instead of the man she loved, her greatest fear. A mockery of her dreams. Fitz was right, they were truly cursed. _ “I’ll go and find Daisy. In the meantime, can you check the motion control of the containment module, please? It’s been acting up.”

“Yeah, sure.” Fitz grabbed his tools and stepped into the module. 

Her heart pounding, Jemma pushed the button sealing the the door of the pod shut. S _ he was either doing the right thing or the biggest mistake of her life. _ Fitz looked up startled and Jemma saw hate flashing in his eyes for a moment before he managed to school his features. They looked at each other for a long, tense moment. Fitz broke his eyes away first, then started to bang on the door. 

“Let me out, Jemma!” he yelled.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on, Fitz,” she shook her head. “Or shall I call you Doctor?”

“You are out of your mind. It’s me, Jemma,” he pleaded softly. She wavered for a moment, he almost sounded like Fitz. But the message kept playing in her mind; “ _ He is not me _ .”

Jemma pressed her hands over her ears. “I’m not sure who you are. Tell me the truth, please. We can figure it out together if you talk to me.” 

Fitz didn’t reply. Instead, he took out his tools and started unscrewing the control panel inside the pod.

“I created an override. You will not be able to open it from inside,” Jemma warned him, holding up a remote button. 

“No, but I can do this.” The sirens started to blare, filling the Zephyr with the sounds of emergency. “Let’s see which one of us will sound crazy,” he said coldly.

Mack, Yoyo and Daisy came running to the lab. All three of them stopped short as they took in the scene in front of them.

“What’s going on?” Mack demanded in his booming voice.

“Let me out, Mack. Jemma is acting confused, she locked me in here. I have no idea why. Just open the door, I can help her.” Fitz pleaded with Mack. Jemma had to give it to him, he certainly  _ sounded _ concerned. 

Mack turned to Jemma frowning. “Simmons - what’s going on. Are you completely crazy? Open the door.” 

She looked back at him trying to hold back the tears stinging her eyes. “It’s not him. It’s not him. I can prove it.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, sorry that this update took so long. I was going back and forth between two scenarios and could no make up my mind - but well, here we are now. 
> 
> Obviously, I'm making all kinds of science babble talking about things that I have not the faintest knowledge. My only credential to biological sciences is having a roommate in second year who studied medicine ;-) But I used google diligently and entertained myself with 2-minute neuroscience youtube videos. Fascinating stuff.
> 
> The sentence about "a dream being an answer to a question we haven't learnt how to ask" is an homage to X-files, my very first fandom. 
> 
> I promise that the final chapter will arrive faster than this one did.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about this! It's kind of a nightmare scenario of mine that Fitz wakes up as The Doctor, while his real self is trapped inside, trying to get to the surface. 
> 
> I know I should not start a new story, when I have so many WIPs, but I wrote this a while back.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as [@weareagentsofnothing](https://weareagentsofnothing.tumblr.com)


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